LAPD watching skid row for missing actor Nick Stahl

Los Angeles Police Department officers are on the lookout on skid row for Nick Stahl, the actor who played John Connor in "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" and has been missing for several days.

Stahl's wife, Rose Murphy, reported him missing about 10:10 a.m. Monday to Hollywood Division officers, spokesman Richard French said. Foul play is not suspected at this time, he said.

She said the last time she saw him was May 9. Stahl had been frequenting skid row, and LAPD officials said officers who work the downtown beat have been told keep an eye out for him.

Murphy filed court papers in February, saying that the couple had been separated since January. She asked that Stahl's visitations with their daughter, Marlo, 2, be limited. She also asked for proof he hadn't used drugs within 24 hours before seeing her, KTLA-TV Channel 5 reported.

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— Andrew Blankstein

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Expect lower gas prices heading into Memorial Day

If you’re lucky enough to live in some parts of the United States, you may see gas pump prices fall to around $3.25 a gallon or less in the next week or two. Even West Coast drivers should get some relief from prices that are still above $4 a gallon.

Retail gasoline prices dropped by a penny to a national average of $3.71 per gallon on Friday. That’s 22 cents less than the high of $3.94 per gallon reached in early April. Lower oil prices are the main reason. Weaker demand is also helping to push down prices, as consumers watch their spending in the sluggish economic recovery.

Motorists on the West Coast, in Illinois and New York are paying the most for gas — from $3.83 per gallon to $4.54 per gallon — according to AAA, Wright Express and the Oil Price Information Service. The lowest prices, from $3.39 to $3.51 per gallon, were in the South and parts of the Midwest.

Prices should continue to decline heading into Memorial Day. The national average is expected to be around $3.60 per gallon or a little bit higher for the long holiday weekend, but a smattering of cities may see prices much lower. Read More »

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BERLIN (AP) — A German opera house says renowned baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau has died. He was 86.

Berlin’s Deutsche Oper said the singer of opera and artistic songs died Friday at his home in Bavaria in southern Germany.

Culture Minister Bernd Neumann says Fischer-Dieskau “deeply moved countless people around the world for more than half a century through hundreds of concerts and recordings.”

He said Fischer-Dieskau’s recordings of works by composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert and Richard Strauss set benchmarks for generations of singers to come, especially through his famous representation of Schubert’s “Winter Journey.”

Klaus Staeck, president of the German Academy of Arts, said Fischer-Dieskau’s “performances of some of the great roles in operatic history shaped the culture of singing.”

But mostly he’s been forced on the defensive.

He’s worked to deflect Team Obama efforts to paint him as a job-destroying corporate raider at Bain Capital in the 1980s. Read More »

Devils-Rangers East finals living up to the hype

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The Eastern Conference Finals between the New Jersey Devils and rival New York Rangers are turning out to be exactly what everyone thought.

Hard hitting. Tight checking. Low scoring.

Indeed, as it’s played under the microscope of the New York metropolitan area media, this has been hockey with an edge … but not so edgy as to cross the line.

The two games at Madison Square Garden were similar. They were tied after two periods, and decided in the third. The Rangers won the first with three goals in the last period and the Devils took the second, 3-2, on Wednesday night on a great deflection by David Clarkson .

The best-of-7 series for the right to go to the Stanley Cup Finals now moves to the Prudential Center in New Jersey for games on Saturday afternoon and Monday night.

"I think it’s everything that we were anticipating really from the hockey standpoint," Devils captain Zach Parise said Thursday. "We expected tight games. We expected not a lot of room out there from either team, and games down to the wire. I guess from everything else surrounding it, it’s definitely more media coverage than we’ve ever seen.

"So that part is a little different than the attention that it’s getting, that the series is getting. Read More »

Preakness Stakes: Analysis And Picks « CBS Chicago

By Kevin Martin-

(CBS) The Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, will be contested at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Saturday. Six colts who ran in the Kentucky Derby will return for the Preakness including the top two finishers, I’ll Have Another and Bodemeister. Also returning are the fourth and fifth place finishers, Went the Day Well and Creative Cause, as well as also-rans, Daddy Nose Best and Optimizer. The remainder of the field will be made up of unproven colts and minor stakes winners that would be a shock should they come anywhere near a winner’s circle on Saturday.

In recent years, the Preakness has been the most predictable of the Triple Crown races with only three winners since 2000 paying more than $10 for a $2 win bet. During that same period the Kentucky Derby has had eleven win payouts over $10 and the Belmont Stakes has had nine. Another thing to consider is colts that compete in the Derby tend to win the Preakness. Since 1997, only three Preakness winners did not run in the Derby. If the trends hold, the winner of this year’s Preakness will be one of the six that ran in the Derby and will go off at odds of less than 4-to-1.

Here is a closer look at the eleven who will line up for the 2012 Preakness Stakes:

Bodemeister While Bodemeister has received all the attention for his valiant but losing effort in the Derby, Went the Day Well also ran a tremendous race to finish fourth. Read More »

John Travolta’s Attorney: Actor Is “Completely Vindicated” Following Lawsuit …

“My client is completely vindicated by Doe No. 1 dropping his claims and dismissing his lawsuit,” Singer said in a statement to E! News. “We fully expect that my client will similarly be vindicated with respect to Doe No. 2, as well as with respect to any other person who makes meritless claims against John Travolta.”

It was reported last week that attorney Okorie Okorocha had dropped John Doe No. 1 as a client after certain details of his graphically told story accusing Travolta of trying to manhandle him during a massage in Beverly Hills didn’t add up. However, the notice of dismissal was only filed today.

The complaint originally filed by Doe No. 1 was amended several days later to include Doe No. 2 . A cruise ship worker has also claimed certain improprieties on Travolta’s part, but has not taken any legal action.

Singer said from the beginning that all of the allegations against Travolta are “absurd and ridiculous.”

—Reporting by Baker Machado

Read More »

Dancing With the Stars Results: Who Survived the Double …

Dancing With the Stars bid farewell to two of its top six competitors on last night’s results show. Did the four favorites survive, or were there surprises?

It was really anyone’s game. A week after scoring a perfect 30, Maria Menounos and Derek Hough found themselves in second-to-last place Monday.

Roshon Fegan, who narrowly avoided elimination, climbed to second, while only six points separated William Levy in first from Melissa Gilbert in last.

So which four celebrities are moving on to the semifinals?

Roshon and Chelsie Hightower were the first couple to be eliminated. Even after having one of their better weeks, it wasn’t enough for the young pair.

“I’m definitely very happy that I can add ballroom dancing to my super-duper dance moves,” Roshon told co-host Brooke Burke-Charvet in response. Read More »

Zip-Line Injury: Aimee Copeland's Recovery Improves, But She Is …

What happened to Copeland is scary in its innocuousness- the 24-year-old grad student was out kayaking with friends and used a homemade zip-line (one of those things where you hang on a wheeled contraption and slide down a rope) when at some point during the process, she sustained a “gash” on her leg.

But the zip-line injury didn’t just get infected and land Aimee in the hospital- instead, she came down with necrotizing fasciitis, also known as the flesh-eating bacteria. The often-fatal infection is difficult for doctors to treat, and when it can be stopped, the damage it causes is frequently devastating.

Initially, doctors and her family believed Copeland wouldn’t survive the zip-line injury, and the student lost a leg and part of her abdomen already in an attempt by docs to halt the deadly infection’s spread.

And while it is likely that doctors will have to further amputate her limbs- her dad says that Copeland’s hands already “appear mummified”- the student’s father is cautiously optimistic that she will recover fully:

YOUR BEST WEAPON AGAINST MALIGNANT BACTERIA AND VIRUSES:

There is a highly effective remedy for whooping cough and any other ailment caused by bacteria or viruses, and this remedy is equally effective against anti-biotic drug resistant bacteria. Read More »

The Real Lesson of North Carolina’s Amendment 1

President Obama’s public support of same-sex marriage helped upright the frowns of many LGBT marriage activists. The president’s endorsement came the day after North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment to ban recognition of any form of relationship that is not a legally married hetereosexual couple. While the passing of Amendment 1 may seem like a big blow to same sex-marriage activists, the grassroots organizing that came together to fight it may actually be the most important win for North Carolina, and a sign that activists in the state are building a better social justice infrastructure for the future.

What’s most important for the gay marriage advocates to remember is that Amendment 1 was never just about same sex marriage—that was already illegal in North Carolina. The bill was written and heavily promoted by Alliance Defense Fund , a right-wing legal advocacy group, and bans all legal protections for unmarried people. It ends people’s ability to get health insurance under domestic partnership plans. The bill even threatens the rights of unmarried parents to visit their children.

While this has been true in many of the now-30 constitutional amendments at the state level, the LGBT organizations have failed, in their desire to win “marriage equality,” to get ahead of the right-wing message to really paint it for what it is: a religious conservative policy agenda to remove anything resembling state support for “inappropriate” gender, romantic or sexual relationships. Read More »

The Real Lesson of North Carolina’s Amendment 1

President Obama’s public support of same-sex marriage helped upright the frowns of many LGBT marriage activists. The president’s endorsement came the day after North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment to ban recognition of any form of relationship that is not a legally married hetereosexual couple. While the passing of Amendment 1 may seem like a big blow to same sex-marriage activists, the grassroots organizing that came together to fight it may actually be the most important win for North Carolina, and a sign that activists in the state are building a better social justice infrastructure for the future.

What’s most important for the gay marriage advocates to remember is that Amendment 1 was never just about same sex marriage—that was already illegal in North Carolina. The bill was written and heavily promoted by Alliance Defense Fund , a right-wing legal advocacy group, and bans all legal protections for unmarried people. It ends people’s ability to get health insurance under domestic partnership plans. The bill even threatens the rights of unmarried parents to visit their children.

While this has been true in many of the now-30 constitutional amendments at the state level, the LGBT organizations have failed, in their desire to win “marriage equality,” to get ahead of the right-wing message to really paint it for what it is: a religious conservative policy agenda to remove anything resembling state support for “inappropriate” gender, romantic or sexual relationships. Read More »